It was twenty-five years ago when Carnegie Mellon University professor, Mr.Scott E. Fahlman used this symbol first time. :-)

This is how this was happened:
"Fahlman posted the emoticon in a message to an online electronic bulletin board at 11:44 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1982, during a discussion about the limits of online humor and how to denote comments meant to be taken lightly."

The article here
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20829611/
via /.

I haven't anything else to say :-)

I posted this too soon :)
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-08-07-n23.html

Thanks for the link, I was not aware.

But the important day was on Wednesday, however ;-)
Ooops, :-) I mean.

Yarr! Tis' a fine concept me wee lad, yarr!